Message selection for hardware tracing in system-on-chip post-silicon debugging

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• receiving, by a processor, system-on-chip (SoC) design information corresponding to an SoC;
• determining, based on the SoC design information, a set of messages that are exchanged between blocks of the SoC;
• determining a set of possible combinations of messages of the set of messages;
• determining a respective mutual information gain for each possible combination of messages in the set of possible combinations of messages;
• and
• selecting a combination of messages having a highest determined mutual information gain for monitoring via hardware tracing in the SoC.

A computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processing device to cause the processing device to perform a method comprising:
• receiving system-on-chip (SoC) design information corresponding to an SoC;
• determining, based on the SoC design information, a set of messages that are exchanged between blocks of the SoC;
• determining a set of possible combinations of messages of the set of messages;
• determining a respective mutual information gain for each possible combination of messages in the set of possible combinations of messages;
• and
• selecting a combination of messages having a highest determined mutual information gain for monitoring via hardware tracing in the SoC.